Summer G5 Release Says Forbes
[quote]Originally posted by powerdoc:
<strong>
An hard question here : what is the most performant in general : sdram 133 mhz with very performant L3 cache or ddr ram 133 mhz *2 without L3 cache ?
Perhaps only apple engineers have an answer ...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Easy answer. Faster FSB, DDR memory and a processor with an L3 cache.
<strong>
An hard question here : what is the most performant in general : sdram 133 mhz with very performant L3 cache or ddr ram 133 mhz *2 without L3 cache ?
Perhaps only apple engineers have an answer ...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Easy answer. Faster FSB, DDR memory and a processor with an L3 cache.
Comments
[quote]Out on the horizon lies another chip, this one called the G5, that Motorola has been working on for some time. There's not much known about it, other than the fact that it's supposed to be a lot faster and more powerful than the G4. Speculation is rampant about when the chip will first appear in an Apple computer, and the most likely time is this summer, when Apple holds its Macworld summer event in New York. It was at Macworld last summer that Chief Executive Steve Jobs first unveiled the Quicksilver design enclosure for the G4 line.<hr></blockquote>
<img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
[ 01-31-2002: Message edited by: janitor ]</p>
<img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
Why, ass u m e that the G4 continues to progress, for example to the HiP7(re: 0.13µ process) and by the end of the year is @ 1.6GHz to 2.0GHz(re: extended pipelines 4 - 7 - 10stages?).
Throw in DDR sDram with a faster frontside bus. These machine will scream. Didn't Motorola's literature for the MPC7455 now contains "Full symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) support ? Allows customers to easily scale their designs with multiple processors to deliver much higher system performance "
I'm not sure exactly what Full symmetric multiprocessing support means over what the MPC7450 or MPC7451 means, but I think that opens the door for more that dual machines.
Maybe Quad processors are now a possibility?
<strong>" G5's come next Jan, this is really bad PR for our boys in Cupertino"
Why, ass u m e that the G4 continues to progress, for example to the HiP7(re: 0.13µ process) and by the end of the year is @ 1.6GHz to 2.0GHz(re: extended pipelines 4 - 7 - 10stages?).
Throw in DDR sDram with a faster frontside bus. These machine will scream. Didn't Motorola's literature for the MPC7455 now contains "Full symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) support ? Allows customers to easily scale their designs with multiple processors to deliver much higher system performance "
I'm not sure exactly what Full symmetric multiprocessing support means over what the MPC7450 or MPC7451 means, but I think that opens the door for more that dual machines.
Maybe Quad processors are now a possibility?</strong><hr></blockquote>
My point was simply that now a major, mainstream, international publication is (sort of) predicting a G5 by July, and that speculation will reach many more people than these boards. Therefore, if that anticipation is raised in the general, mac-using public, and then doesn't materialize, that would be bad PR.
I hope that the G4 DOES continue to scale throughout the year, and that the new systems intoed in 2002 will continue to rock and increase in spec and speed. I'm just saying that now instead of a few mac-geeks like us hoping for the G5, the general public will be hoping too.
<strong>A quad processor machine would only be made for the likes of Maya, and the system bus would have to be soooooo fast, only 333Mhz DDR would really do.</strong><hr></blockquote>
People who only use Maya wouldn't care that much about quads right now, since it doesn't support MP yet.
But it's not always used exclusively. Maya arrived for OS X because of people clamoring to run it on the same platform they ran other, related apps on - After Effects, Photoshop, FCP, etc. Even if a four-way MP system couldn't accelerate any one app that substantially, it could allow several powerful apps to do heavy processing all at once, which could potentially cut the time required to complete a project more than doing each job sequentially on a single, faster processor.
Heck, Maya could run its interface on one or two processors and render in a background thread on the rest.
Given that there are a lot of graphics artists who use a suite of programs to get work done, this could be a worthwhile high end setup. It wouldn't just be for Maya (or insert high-end 3D app here). And with the onboard SuperDrive, you could burn your work onto a DVD.
[ 01-31-2002: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
<strong>
My point was simply that now a major, mainstream, international publication is (sort of) predicting a G5 by July, and that speculation will reach many more people than these boards. Therefore, if that anticipation is raised in the general, mac-using public, and then doesn't materialize, that would be bad PR.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Isn't there a quote "any PR is good PR"?
J/K...
Look ...The one thing I can take from this and other articles like this is Apple has stirred the personal computer waters and other sectors of the business world are finally starting to take notice.....Apple has reestablished itself as a pacesetter (perhaps THE pacesetter), and all other PC manufactures are trying to following suit, or hoping to outguess them.
For the first time in YEARS, the threat of a reinvigorated Apple looms large because in this down economy the "Mercedes" of the personal computing world is MAKING MONEY... and isn't that the bottom line?
A lot of BS too. I personally think our arguments are as least as well founded as theirs.
Only thing they have we don't is publicity.
G-News
Motorola announces new chips before they come out (unless there a an original 'G' chip, like the 7400 in which case they put a tiny bit of info on the roadmap and keep quiet). The last G4 chip was the Apollo. There has been no G4 chip announcements after that, so presumably the 74x5 will be the last G4 chips (ignoring a HiPoMos7 variant)
The only increase in FSB therefore is 133 > 166.
'scaling with multiple CPUs'??? Give me a break. 2 CPUs, sure. 4, get real! Yeah 4 CPUs sharing a 133MHz bus. Ok with an Alpha (RIP) or Athlon, but they have separate busses for each CPU. The MPX bus has multiple CPUs on the same bus. So if all cpus were processing tasks at the same time they would each have a 33MHz effective bus. Motorola, gimmie a break.
Barto
[ 01-31-2002: Message edited by: Barto ]</p>
If you have 4 processors, each with dedicated busses, what controls I/O access to prevent conflicts? Does one chip act as manager and simply farm processing jobs out to the additional chips? This is how I assume the process is handled.
If the processors must share a single bus, say 133Mhz, they must share the bus four ways which effectively means they get 33Mhz (again, just repeating Barto). So how does this affect fast writes to fast drives? Does it? Could it?
What's the "dream" setup for multiple processors for a multi-proc Gx series Mac tower? I'm talking about bus architecture, I/O setups. Please explain the complicated stuff.....this is all really interesting to those of us who just want a fast computer but have never bothered to learn the science!
Drew
Interesting....
What Apple needs is to have G5s in the Powermacs, w/ 400 MHz system bus, 1.2-1.6 GHz, and G4s in all other Macs. iMacs should clock over 1 GHz w/ 266 MHz system bus, the Titanium should go as high as possible to keep heat and battery life under control (at least 800 Mhz with the new Apollo, according to power usage ratings), and the iBook should be clocked just a bit under the Titanium, maybe 533-667 for the iBook (133 MHz bus), and 733-867 for the Titanium (266 MHz system bus). These speeds would get Apple through the year and then in 2003 another mondo speed bump would be needed across the product lines, as Intel will be at 3-4 GHz by 2003.
The towers are Apple's biggest money maker, even more than the iMacs. iMacs are good for marketshare, but the big profits come from powermacs. With pathetic tower sales, Apple is doomed.
The only other alternative for Apple would be to hire a crew to take out key Intel fabs and disrupt Pentium 4 production to buy time for G5 development. Otherwise Apple is doomed.
<strong>If the G5 doesn't arrive until MWSF, then Apple is fu[ked. Nobody is buying the towers, even with that silly 133 MHz speed bump the Powermacs are obviously over priced and under powered.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Um, a lot of guys on these boards, despite basically being reminded that there might be a G5 in the next week / month / year on a daily basis, have ordered a dual 1GHz machine, and I'd imagine this is even more true for the general, less G5-informed public.
Bye,
RazzFazz
<strong>If ... then Apple is fu[ked.
With ..., Apple is doomed.
Otherwise Apple is doomed.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Relax, JD, the sky isn't falling. I believe your concern is warranted. Apple should crack their Motorola whip to ensure healthy processors in the future. They need to distinguish themselves if they want any kind of market share.
However, Apple's been around a long time. I believe they'll be around a while longer, don't you?
G5s by Fall/Winter 2002 would be fine in the big picture of things. We'll whine and gripe if they're not out in New York, but the World of Apple will go on, MS will continue with a 95% monopoly, people will still buy Dells, and both MS and Dell will try to crib as much as they can from Apple, and we will continue to forecast either Apple's imminent death, or Apple's imminent ascendency to the OS throne.
You know, I think you should try some<a href="http://www.crazyapplerumors.com/archives/2002_01_06_crazyapplerumor_archive.htm" target="_blank">sexbots</a> from CARS.
[edit: fast and hairy mouse-button fingers]
[ 02-01-2002: Message edited by: GardenOfEarthlyDelights ]</p>
PS: or for that matter, Apple Expo Paris is also a backup candidate, no? Don't be surprised.
[ 02-01-2002: Message edited by: BuonRotto ]</p>
<strong>OS X is still a dog on most Macs</strong><hr></blockquote>
Most old Macs, perhaps. Any Mac currently shipping today, with the possible exception of the iBook, will run OS X just fine. I tried out the new iMac at an Apple store and OS X wasn't giving it any trouble that I could see.
<a href="http://www.architosh.com/news/2002-02/2002b-0201-quadswanted.phtml" target="_blank">http://www.architosh.com/news/2002-02/2002b-0201-quadswanted.phtml</a>
We don't need no stinking G5's, we just need more POWER!